


Around One Constant

by Ostentenacity



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, POV Outsider, Post-Canon (ish), ending spoilers, interview format, no dlc spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27307000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ostentenacity/pseuds/Ostentenacity
Summary: Assorted eyewitness accounts of the events of AWE-24-B, October 29, 2019.Or: Three Bureau employees describe what it was like to be in the Oldest House during the invasion.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 64





	Around One Constant

**Author's Note:**

> I was replaying Control for the (*checks notes*) fifth time, jeez, and I noticed that the friendly Rangers stop shooting Hiss after you start Seizing them. It got me thinking about what the Rangers might have been thinking about their brand-new Director, and _then_ I started thinking about what the other Bureau employees might have been going through, and, well, here we are.
> 
> The ID & file numbers are made up to fit roughly in with the named enemies and the file numbers on the in-game collectables, but they’re not references to anything specific. If the Bureau has a coherent numbering system, I’ve yet to figure it out.
> 
> Content warnings in the end notes.

**INTERVIEW #77-R-112-A**

**SUBJECT: Myrna Brown (Bureau ID MB-103)**

**Please state your name and rank for the record.**

Myrna Brown. Ranger, First Class.

**What was your current assignment at the time of the Hiss incursion?**

I didn’t have one. Or, rather, I was between assignments. About a week before the incursion, I’d been dispatched to investigate a possible AWE in this small town up in Lewis County. It was a total bust, but I still had to spend five days in a tiny little motel with—sorry, that’s not important. Anyway. I got back to the Oldest House pretty late in the evening, did my initial debrief, which took _hours,_ then headed off to the Ranger barracks to get some shut-eye. I normally go home between assignments for a few days, try and get used to living in the real world instead of… well, _this,_ but it was late and I was tired. Next thing I remember is my bunkmate Chris waking me up and dragging me to one of the shelters.

**Please describe your part in the events of the initial phase of the incursion, up to the lifting of the internal lockdown.**

The first few hours, we were just hunkered down in the shelter. There were four of us—me, Chris, Lily, and Justina. We all had our HRAs on, thank goodness. I think about… half?... of our wing of the barracks were wearing them regularly, out of maybe two-thirds who’d had them issued. The four of us are pretty good friends, and we’d all seen enough to know that when the scientist-types tell you to wear their latest impractical and/or ugly protection device, you put it on right there and don’t ask questions for at least three months. 

Once the door was sealed and we’d all calmed down a little, the others started comparing notes on what was going on. I obviously didn’t have anything to contribute, since I was asleep, but Chris didn’t either, really—she’d just heard the lockdown sirens and was following procedure. She didn’t know how serious it was either, until Lily told us about the floating people. 

Now, if it had been Justina telling me that half the Rangers had levitated off the floor and started chanting some kind of spooky nonsense mantra, I would—well, no, that’s a little too specific to be one of her pranks. But I would have been suspicious. So it’s probably a good thing that both she and Lily saw them. Justina said something about a weird House shift too, but I didn’t know what to make of that until I saw the nonsense around the Control Point in the Ritual Division. The House does some bizarre shit, but cubes all over the walls is one I haven’t seen before.

**The Ritual Division? Were you in the Research Sector at the time of the initial lockdown?**

No. We were in a shelter in the Residential Sector until someone came to get us, and that was after the end of the internal lockdown.

**Please describe your part in the events of the second phase of the incursion, between the lifting of the internal lockdown and the HRA outage.**

Well, one of the Rangers came to check in on us after a while. Once they’d established we were all wearing HRAs, they opened the door and led us back to the barracks so that I could get dressed and the others could grab their gear. Then we headed to Central Executive to rendezvous with the rest of the Ranger Corps and get new assignments. Ran into some infected security guards along the way. Poor bastards. That’s when I knew we weren’t getting out of this anytime soon.

I think it wasn’t until we were in the Residential Sector lobby that we realized the portraits on the walls had changed. I don’t even think it really even came as a shock. We’d already seen the—the Hiss Agents, I think the official name is? The ones that would just float and chant—and we’d seen infected guards turn on us, and we’d seen how spooked the other Rangers were, so it was just… just additional data, at that point. Like, of _course_ Trench had resigned, or died, or whatever, and we were going to have to deal with a newcomer on top of everything. Of _course._

When we got to Central Executive, one of the research staff—Pope, her name was—had set up shop in the boardroom, but aside from some Rangers maintaining a perimeter to protect the Control Point and the researchers with her, there wasn’t much in the way of direction for us. But Marshall called for support over the intercom a little while later, so off to Research we went. 

The Ritual Division was… bad. I don’t really know how else to describe it. We were trying to defend the control point at first, but we didn’t have any technicians on-site so we couldn’t exactly _do_ anything with it, and besides, there was something wrong with it, so eventually we just started fighting the Hiss any which way. Visibility was basically nil, because the light was all red and dark and—do you know that the Hiss vaporize when they die? They turn into this awful clinging… _stuff_ that hangs in the air and obscures your sight. Sure, it dissipates eventually, but by then, you’ve already been shot. Or smacked with the butt of a rifle. Or _blown up,_ because apparently those things know how to use our rocket launchers.

So, yeah. Bad. I was only in there a few minutes before Director Faden showed up. Lucky thing, too, because I don’t know that we would have lasted much longer without help.

**What did Director Faden do?**

Let me get one thing straight. I’ve been a Ranger for twenty years. I’ve been on the ground during AWEs before. Not Ordinary, sure, but I know what it’s like to have the laws of reality just fall apart on you. I’ve handled Altered Items. I’ve fought both alongside and against parautilitarians. I even witnessed one of Northmoor’s infamous temper tantrums. But I have _never_ seen anything like Director Faden.

I didn’t notice when she came into the room; I was too busy covering for Lily, who’d taken a bullet in the shoulder and was trying to get to safety. But I did notice when Faden started ripping chunks out of the walls. That’s not the kind of thing you forget. She was just standing there, in the middle of the room, no armor except something that looked like it might’ve been a leather jacket—hard to tell with the light all wrong—and waving an arm around, and the Hiss were dropping like fucking flies. She had that weird pistol, too, the one that Trench carried around everywhere—the Service Weapon, I think they call it. She fired, I don’t know, maybe a few dozen times altogether? But I never saw her reload it, not once. 

That wasn’t even the weirdest part, though. I remember I was trying to pin down this one infected Ranger, and I’d almost dropped him, but then the air went all weird and he started to sort of… twitch? And I looked over, and there was Director Faden just _staring_ at him, with one hand all outstretched. And then he shook it off, or something, and she turned away, and I was all lined up to nail him, but he shot one of the other Hiss in the back. Didn’t even try to attack me, and I’d just shot him like three times. I lost track of him after that—there were other Hiss to worry about—and I don’t think he survived the fight, but, damn. It was something else.

I’d almost think I imagined it, except that afterwards, almost all the Rangers said they’d seen her do it, too. Not to the guy I was fighting, but to others. We counted up, and we think she must have whammied somewhere between six and ten of them over the course of maybe five minutes. 

Like I said, I’ve never seen anything like it.

**What happened after the skirmish in the Ritual Division?**

Well, Lily was injured, like I said, and needed help getting back to Central Executive, where there were fewer Hiss and more chances a medic might show up. I volunteered to escort her back, because—well, I mean, someone had to do it, and it might as well be someone she knew, and it wasn’t like I was doing anything important, and I knew Chris and Tina probably wouldn’t volunteer unless I told them _I_ wasn’t going to because they know how I f—uh, because they’re big fans of Marshall and were probably going to try and get assigned to a perimeter in Research so that they could work with her.

The trip back was pretty uneventful. When we arrived, there was only one medic, but Lily’s injury was the most serious one there, so he bandaged her up and told her to rest. Me, too, since it was coming up on sixteen hours or so since the initial lockdown, and I was tired from the fight. So we both caught a few hours of shut-eye.

I missed the big hubbub with Dylan Faden. Just slept right through it, wild as that sounds. Pope and that ex-Ranger guy from Security, Arish, were in charge when I woke up. Last anyone had heard, the new Director was off in Containment looking for an Object of Power, and Marshall was off doing who-knows-what in Maintenance. I spent a few boring hours on guard duty before the HRAs all went haywire.

**Can you describe the HRA outage in more detail?**

Honestly, my memories are pretty foggy. I don’t think I’m going to remember much more than last time. I... mostly remember a lot of red, and a lot of really—well, really grotesque images. It’s sort of like a dream, the way it seemed so vivid in the moment, but all the details slip away when I try to pin them down. I remember saying the Hiss incantation, though. It seemed so important at the time. It made so much _sense._ It was like I’d discovered the—the meaning of life or something, and I had to keep saying it, over and over, to keep it in my mind, to keep it fresh. But when the HRAs came back online, it was just gibberish again.

Did you want me to describe what happened during the cleanup phase, up until the external lockdown got lifted, or—?

**See INTERVIEW #77-R-112-B for subject’s account of AWE-24-B phase 4.**

* * *

**INTERVIEW #77-R-368-A**

**SUBJECT: Alex Glass (Bureau ID AG-771)**

**Please state your name and job title for the record.**

My name is Alex Glass and I’m a junior researcher. My specialty is House-specific topology, if that’s relevant.

**What were you doing at the time of the Hiss incursion?**

I was giving a presentation on Control Points to some new hires. We were in a conference room in Executive Affairs.

**Can you describe what happened?**

I saw other people reacting to it before I noticed anything myself. All of the people who weren’t wearing HRAs started talking and moving at the same time. They seemed confused and disoriented, and a few of them seemed afraid for the first few moments. But within fifteen seconds or so, they were unresponsive and had started to float and chant. 

I was tempted to stay and try to figure out what was going on, but then the lockdown sirens started up, so I went to the nearest empty shelter with a few other people who had been wearing HRAs. I remembered being instructed to speak to myself in a calming manner in case of an emergency, so I did. The other people I was with must have forgotten that part of our training, because none of them did the same.

**Please describe your part in the events of the initial phase of the incursion, up to the lifting of the internal lockdown.**

The other staff members in the shelter got bored after a while and decided to try and explore outside of the shelter. I told them that we were in an emergency lockdown and that procedure mandated that we stay put, but I was overruled on the grounds that we had three armed security guards on our side. 

The guards opened the shelter and started exploring outside. I didn’t really see anything, because I was in the far end of the shelter from the door behind a privacy screen. It was uneventful for a few minutes, and then there was a screeching sound from outside and two of the guards came running back. I didn’t see the third one again.

We stayed in the shelter after that until some Rangers came by saying that the new Director had fixed the Control Point in Central Executive. The guards didn’t want to leave the shelter. I’m not actually sure if they came with us in the end. I was too busy asking the Rangers for more details about what the new Director had done.

**Were you surprised to hear there was a new Director?**

Hmm. I don’t think so. Like I said, I was too busy trying to find out what had happened to the Control Point that needed fixing.

**Did you get rescued before or after the lifting of the internal lockdown?**

Before. Emily told me when I arrived that Jesse had gone to try and get into Maintenance to lift it, but the elevator was still locked down. 

**What happened after you got to Central Executive?**

I set up some monitoring equipment around the Control Point. The readings were _fascinating,_ nothing like any measurements I’ve taken before. The [REDACTED] alone—

Oh, sorry, I just remembered, that’s classified. I can’t tell you any more. It was _really_ interesting, though.

**Please describe your part in the events of the second phase of the incursion, between the lifting of the internal lockdown and the HRA outage.**

I stayed in Central Executive and assisted Emily. Her specialty is paranatural entities, not House topology, so I was mostly interpreting the Control Point data while she took in reports about the Hiss creatures. 

I wish I could’ve had a chance to interview Jesse—I mean Director Faden—about the Control Points. She said she was “cleansing” them as she came across them to remove the Hiss influence. I guess it might not have done _much_ good, since she’s not a House topologist and probably doesn’t—didn’t—know any of the jargon, but still. What I wouldn’t have given to have a chance to monitor a Control Point while she was cleansing it… I wonder whether it’s a ritual, or a formula, or if she’s using [REDACTED]...

Wait, sorry, classified information again. You’ll have to redact that from the tape. Oh, and probably the earlier bit, too.

**...Thanks for that.**

You’re welcome!

**Moving on. Can you describe the HRA outage?**

Oh. 

It... hurt. I… I can’t look at other people’s injuries. It’s not a queasiness thing, I’m not afraid of blood by itself or anything, it just—it _hurts_ me, when other people are hurting. Like phantom pain. And when the HRAs stopped working, I kept seeing—

Do I have to describe it?

**Yes, please. You can give an overview if you want, though, rather than describing each vision in detail.**

Okay. Thanks. Um.

I didn’t see the Hiss… _creatures_ much, during the invasion. I know there were some pictures that got passed around the staff in Central Executive at some point, but I didn’t look at them. The only ones I got a good look at were the Agents, and they mostly seemed pretty peaceful. I mean, I guess they were probably experiencing the visions that we all got during the HRA outage, but—you mostly couldn’t tell. They weren’t acting panicked or upset.

But, when the Hiss got into my head, I kept seeing the… the worse ones. The ones that looked sort of like moths—Distorted—and the, uh, the Charged? I couldn’t look away, because I wasn’t really _looking_ at them, I was seeing them in my mind’s eye, and I just—I’m just really glad Jesse got the HRAs working again.

Sorry. Can I finish this another time? I don’t feel well.

**See INTERVIEW #77-R-368-B for subject’s account of AWE-24-B phase 3 and INTERVIEW #77-R-368-C for subject’s account of AWE-24-B phase 4.**

* * *

**INTERVIEW #77-R-402-A**

**SUBJECT: Rory Evans (Bureau ID RE-932)**

**Please state your name and job title for the record.**

Rory Evans. Uh, I’m a file clerk.

**What were you doing at the time of the Hiss incursion?**

I was talking to my boss. He wasn’t wearing an HRA, so he got infected pretty much instantly. It was—it wasn’t nice.

**Can you describe what happened?**

Well, that morning, I’d missed my train and was running late, but I managed to get all the way to Dead Letters without anyone spotting me, so I thought I’d probably gotten away with it. I’d say, don’t tell my boss, but, well, um—anyway. It was pretty much business as usual for a few hours, I think? A little before lunchtime, one of what-his-name-from-Research’s lackeys came by with a cart of HRAs and made a bunch of us put them on. Who they picked seemed random to me at the time, but come to think of it, I think they were focusing on people with higher security clearances.

My boss Kevin didn’t complain within the labcoats’ earshot, but as soon as they were gone, he took the thing off again. I must’ve given him a funny look, because he got annoyed and told me that if I wanted to make a fashion statement so bad, then I could wear it instead of him. I—well, it’s usually easier to just not argue with him, so I put it on. 

They’re not comfortable, you know? They’re heavy, and the power cell is weirdly placed, and I could swear my tinnitus got noticeably worse after I put it on. But, again, it’s easier to just not argue with Kevin, and I figured, if he thought he’d embarrassed me, maybe he’d be less annoyed about the box of files I lost the week before.

So I just went back to work while wearing it. I think someone sent a pneumatic to ask for all the dead letters about music, and I was trying to decide whether it was a prank or not, because there are a _lot_ of letters about music, and then Kevin came over and asked me if I thought we were having a House shift.

I hadn’t felt any movement, or noticed any of the usual side effects, so I told him no. He started to say something about feeling dizzy, I think? But halfway through the sentence he just—started saying something unrelated about clichés. It made no sense, and I was about to ask what he was talking about, but when I turned to look at him, he was sort of, well, floating. Drifting upward towards the ceiling like a—like a really slow helium balloon. 

I was so freaked out I wasn’t thinking clearly. The elevator was behind me and he was blocking off the other end of the hallway, so I hit the call button. I think I might’ve been screaming, but I’m not sure. I know you’re supposed to stay calm when freaky stuff happens, but my _boss_ was _floating,_ man, what do you expect me to do? As soon as the elevator got there I went in and hit the emergency stop.

I was stuck in there for… a while.

**Please describe your part in the events of the initial phase of the incursion, up to the lifting of the internal lockdown.**

You mean like after I barricaded myself in the elevator? Okay, um… I didn’t really do much. I just kind of sat there and had a mental breakdown for, like, two hours.

**Two hours? Is that approximate or by the clock?**

My watch wasn’t working. I don’t know if it was actually two hours.

**All right. Did anything notable happen during that time? How did you get out of the elevator?**

For a while it was pretty quiet. I could hear the chanting outside, but it was muffled, so I couldn’t tell you the exact words. Then after a while there was a big commotion outside, with gunshots. I was _convinced_ I was about to die, but after a few minutes, it went away, and there was this weird rumble. Like an actual house shift, not whatever Kevin thought was going on. I didn’t see what changed, though.

It got noisy again once or twice afterwards, but not for as long as the first time, and there wasn’t that same rumble. After it had been a long time since there was noise, I finally worked up the nerve to open the door. I was half-convinced I’d get shot immediately, but there was nobody there, except all the floaters. I booked it to the exit—or, I tried to, but I had to go through Central Executive first, and when I realized there were other people around, I just stayed put. The Rangers are kinda scary, sure, but I’d rather have them between me and the Hiss than trying to get out of the building on my own. Especially once I heard there was a lockdown in effect.

**Please describe your part in the events of the second phase of the incursion, between the lifting of the internal lockdown and the HRA outage.**

I stayed in Central Executive and tried to make myself useful, mostly. There wasn’t exactly much need for a filing clerk, but I could still carry messages and move tables and stuff. 

That one red-haired lady—uh, I mean, the Director—came through a bunch. I didn’t even realize she was the new Director until one of the researchers commented on it. 

I guess the most important thing I did was help clear out the room where they put the bald f—where they put Dylan Faden’s cell. I thought hiding in the elevator from the gunshots had been scary, but this was something else. Until the Rangers put him in the cell, he was just sort of hanging around Central Executive, floating and saying weird shit. Most of the time he kept to himself, but he did try to convince a few people to take their HRAs off. He said something like, _“she’s_ lying to you,” like there was a specific _she_ he was talking about, but he never said a name, and when that Pope lady asked if he meant Jesse—Director Faden, I guess?—he didn’t answer.

I don’t know. I guess he could have done a lot worse than just be spooky at us for like half an hour, but it freaked me out pretty bad. I kept thinking, like—there was a lockdown, and Pope clearly knew who he was, so he’d come from inside the Oldest House. But he was wearing that gray tracksuit with a number on it, and he was shaved bald and didn’t have _shoes,_ and it was all just—like, I know the Bureau does shady shit. I thought I’d accepted that when I started working here. But Dylan Faden gave me the creeps, and not just because of how he was acting.

Also! Also, he didn’t have an HRA. He was talking in coherent sentences—some of the time, anyway—and he _didn’t have an HRA._ It wasn’t even like, maybe some people are more resistant or something, because everybody else who didn’t have one got pretty much the same amount of fucked up, _except_ the Fadens. I don’t even wanna know what kind of freaky mind powers Dylan has, to be sorta half-lucid even when he was infected. I _especially_ don’t wanna know what kind of freaky mind powers the Director has in order to not get infected in the first place.

**Can you describe the HRA outage?**

Seriously? Again?

Okay. I was eating, and then the inside of my brain turned into a slasher movie, and then I realized that it had been some kind of waking nightmare, and then I went and hid in a corner and had another mental breakdown. Is that enough? Am I going to have to rehash this again next week, too?

Sorry, it’s just—it’s a lot. I’ve been having trouble sleeping. At least I’m going to be out of this place in another week, so…

Wait, are you still recording?

**See INTERVIEW #77-R-402-B for subject’s account of AWE-24-B phase 4.**

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: (vague descriptions of) canon-typical body horror and violence; canon-typical unfeeling bureaucracy; implied/referenced workplace bullying (in the third interview).
> 
> Want to leave a comment but not sure what to say? Tell me which interview you liked best :)


End file.
